Saturday, August 18, 2012

Moon Sand, Beading, Play and Gleaning

We started out by sifting sand from our yard, but pre-colored play sand from the craft store would work well, too.

Sylvia measured out 2 cups of cornstarch,

and added 4 cups of sand.

Then the sand and cornstarch were well mixed.

We added 1 cup of water,

some red food coloring, and tea tree and lavender oils.

The result was a mold-able and yet crumbly, nice-smelling Moon Sand substitute.

If you try this yourself, it does dry out in a day or so if left uncovered and can be easily re-hydrated time after time. In fact it's fun to play with the amount of water added to see the different effects of drier or wetter Moon Sand.

Beading

Camille has been loving using this bead loom that she received for her birthday. She drew out her own pattern and spent all day working on her first necklace.

It turned out beautiful!

Look at that smile. Can you tell she loves crafting?

Her next design turned into a pocket adornment on Papa's shirt for his birthday.

Happy birthday, My Love!

Camille used some of her birthday money to buy herself some more wool roving to use with her drop spindle. More happy crafting!

Around the Yard

zucchini harvest

Ayla enjoys feeding the chickens and filling their water, so the chickens enjoy following Ayla around the yard until they are absolutely sure she doesn't have anything for them.

Play

I feel like I could put most of our lives under the category of play. It's really not separate from (enjoyable) work, learning, crafting, discovering, out-and-abouting....

Rory's Story Cubes

Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? Junior Detective Edition

lego table at the bookstore (while Camille and her friend cruised the mall :)

lunch out with one of my longest-running bestest friends (and my girls adore her :)

Gleaning

Kickapoo Harvest is a "grass-roots initiative aimed at getting healthy, locally produced food into the hands and mouths of those who need it most." We joined a couple of other families for 'gleaning'. Basically, we went to an organic farm to harvest, weigh, and box extra produce for families in need.

The produce was then organized and distributed into boxes for individual families. Each family received a box of fresh organic tomatoes and cherry tomatoes, zucchini, crook-necked squash, eggplant, jalapeno peppers, and kale.

About Me

I am Nikole, mama to three lovely and lively kiddos. Cam is 14 years old, Sylvi is 11, and Ayla is 8. This blog is generally a chronicle of our country-living, respectful-parenting, joy-seeking, radical-unschooling life. It is a swirl of fun, learning, and creativity, all in a ragamuffin style ;-)